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Commentary on Resolution 242
By Rashid I. Khalidi
The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World
Oxford University Press, 1993
UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed in November 1967 in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War of June of that year, has become the internationally accepted basis for peacemaking in the Middle East. Drafted by Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the UN, in consultation with the parties concerned, the resolution was an attempt to bring Israeli demands for a final, formal peace agreement together with those of Egypt, Syria and Jordan for Israel’s withdrawal from the territories—the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, West Bank, and East Jerusalem—which it had occupied during the June war.
The resolution did this by a balanced emphasis on “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace.” It therefore called for “withdrawal of Israel from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” as well as for “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every state in the area and their right to live in peace.” The resolution also called for “a just settlement of the refugee problem.”
The resolution was accepted by Egypt, Jordan, and Israel from the outset, but was initially rejected by Syria. Only after the October War of 1973 did Syria accept the resolution, while all the Arab states (except Libya) accepted its principles at the Fez Arab summit conference in 1982. The most consistent rejection of Resolution 242 came from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which from its inception in 1964 refused a peaceful settlement with Israel. After 1974, however, as the PLO moved toward the idea of a negotiated settlement with Israel, it increasingly based its objections to Resolution 242 on the fact that it dealt with the Palestinians as refugees, rather than as a people with national rights. Finally, in 1988, the PLO formally accepted Resolution 242 as the basis for a Middle East settlement, thereby meeting one of the conditions posed by the United States for opening contacts with it.
In spite of apparently universal acceptance of Resolution 242 as a basis for an Arab-Israeli settlement, major problems remain. From 1977 until 1992, Israeli governments were dominated by the Likud bloc, which rejected the application of this resolution to the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, Arab East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights. They claimed that its provisions regarding Israel’s withdrawal were fulfilled with the 1982 withdrawal from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Over the years, moreover, a school of thought has grown increasingly influential in Israel and the United States, arguing that the principle of “land for peace” embodied in Resolution 242 is no longer relevant, and that the changes since June 1967 have become irreversible. This argument for the permanence of the status quo emerging from the 1967 war was undermined by the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada in December 1987, which showed that the status quo in the occupied territories was untenable. If this is true, a negotiated resolution to the conflict is necessary, and when and if this occurs, it will most likely be on the basis of Security Council Resolution 242.
The Text of Resolution 242 More Information on Israel and Palestine
